


The Only Regret

by Name1



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Finally, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, a night together, angst-ish, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26396473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1
Summary: He has to convince himself it's actually her in this random marketplace on this random planet. His mind has tricked him many times over the years-- seeing her in strangers faces, hearing the particular whine of her blaster priming, hearing her voice in a crowd--her laugh--What are the odds in the vastness of the galaxy that they would cross paths randomly again? he wonders.  He knows the odds--the odds were zero--but the universe must have had a plan for them to meet again. It couldn't possibly be chance. Not a third time……
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin & Cara Dune
Comments: 27
Kudos: 77





	The Only Regret

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I haven’t had the time to devote to these stories that they deserve. I’m doing my best to get things written, but I definitely feel it’s not the priority it should be. The grammar is worse than usual. Sorry guys, my brain is tired.

She's even more beautiful than he remembers the last time he saw her two _long_ years ago. She's so different, yet the same: her hair longer, her skin more bronze, a new scar on her neck, a darker set of armor, and the same smile that could put him on his ass from twenty paces. 

He has to convince himself it's actually _her_ in this random marketplace on this random planet. His mind has tricked him many times over the years-- seeing her in strangers faces, hearing the particular whine of her blaster priming, hearing her voice in a crowd--her laugh--.

 _What are the odds in the vastness of the galaxy that they would cross paths randomly again?_ he wonders. He knows the odds--the odds were zero--but the universe must have had a plan for them to meet again. It couldn't possibly be chance. Not a third time……

He keeps his distance as he observes her for a while until she's out of the large crowd in case someone was following her. He's not convinced it's really her, but the likeness is too perfect to ignore. He can't be too cautious though. The darker, more practical part of his mind supplies it could be someone wearing her perfect face--this could be a trap.

_Fuck it. It's worth the risk._

"Cara?" He hears her name fall from his lips, but he hasn't said her name aloud outside the privacy of his mind in so long that it feels foreign and yet warm at the same time.

The way the woman's head jerks completely automatically at the recognition of her name isn't something you could hide if you were pretending to be someone else. The reflex alone and the tenseness of her body give it away. It's _her_. 

Her gloved hand was already on her blaster as she looked around, panicked; craning her neck to see who recognized her.

Din stepped away from the wall and into the empty space of the dirt street so she could see him before she panicked and bolted.

He had lived a moment like this one in his dreams before--many ' _befores'_ if he was being honest. He had a whole speech planned. It would be clever, witty, make her laugh, and convince her to leave with him at the end of it.

In the reality of that dream come to life, he managed a solid-ish "hey" instead. If he could have kicked himself, he would have. What the hell was it about her that made him forget how to form sentences, even after all this time apart?

The look of shock and disbelief on her face was priceless as she saw him and heard his greeting. There was no hiding how happy she was at running into him again in the most unexpected of places. He felt everything tense rush out of him when she didn't immediately bolt, but relaxed instead and took a step closer. The hesitance he had felt, the caution, and the disbelief was replaced so quickly with relief, happiness, and a sense of rightness at laying eyes on her again, that it almost gave him whiplash.

One thing he remembered vividly was that Cara Dune had a big mouth and a vocabulary that would make a smuggler blush. He was sure he'd never seen her speechless before.

"Din? Is that really you?"

She moved closer to him, but he could see the hesitation once the initial shock wore off. It was more than reasonable she also wanted to confirm it was actually him and not a trick. There were still people after her; this could be a trap for her too. 

There was no way they could possibly know they'd cross paths again, so they didn't have a special code-word, but he tried to think of something only she would know. "You want to go somewhere with less eyes? Maybe grab a drink?" he asks her. He pointedly says next, "I still have that straw you gave me two years ago. The note was rude by the way. I have perfect aim."

Her parting gift had been a straw. He didn't find it laying on the main table of the Crest until after he had left Nevarro, but the scribbled note underneath it was obviously hers. It had read, ‘ _your aim sucks and now you can too_ ’. She must have left it as a parting gift before they disembarked and planned on grabbing it if he asked her to return to the ship with him. 

He had neither asked, nor she insisted, and the way they parted ways that afternoon was one of the moments he wished he could do over. He often wondered how different things would be now if they had spent the last two years traveling together.

Once she knew it was him, she gestured to the nearest wooden door that promised privacy and a stiff drink inside. "Yeah, perfect aim for one of those blind salamanders that lives in caves, maybe." The thought of someone killing him and wearing his armor just to get close to her was too horrible to imagine, but it wasn't impossible, and she could finally relax knowing it was truly her Mandalorian. She had missed him since the day they parted ways and she was overcome with how much happiness filled her chest at seeing him again--alive and well, and as she remembered him. As much as she wanted to punch him for making her worry, there was something else she had wanted to do even more.

He holds the door open for her at the closest quiet cantina, but she pauses before stepping inside. "Wait," she said firmly. He almost jumped at the strong insistent tone of her voice. It must have really been important for her to stop mid-step like that.

She almost reached out to grab his arm in a firm shake but thinks better of it and abandons the motion at the last minute. She wraps her arms around him instead, armor and all, in the mid-day sun of the dusty alleyway. The shape and feel of her armor is different from her old set but it doesn't deter him-- it's the warm body underneath he can feel through a dozen layers of steel that’s so familiar it's like he had just seen her yesterday. Her arms tighten around him and she lets out a heavy sigh and he does the same.

"Sorry, I had to do that just once," she explains, as she releases him, before entering the local watering hole.

He must have been more affected by her sudden presence than he thought because he heard himself utter, "why stop at just once?" as she walks through the open door he braces ajar with his arm. He would never have dreamed of being that bold before. He and Cara always circled each other like two stars locked in a binary orbit, but he felt like maybe adding a little push might not be so dangerous after all. She just had this way of making his brain do weird things and throwing caution to the wind. The way she grinned at him when she heard his teasing words, made him hot in a way the scorching sun could only dream of. Her dimples were even on display--a site he had only seen a handful of times before when he managed to make her laugh.

The reprieve from the sun offered by the cantina was a welcome one. They were sitting at a small table with drinks in front of them, but neither were interested in swallowing anything other than their pride. After eyeing up the few patrons and surveying the room, they had moved their chairs closer to each other so they could talk quietly. "I can't believe you're here," she says, when she can't think of anything more important to say than that. She's looking at him like he might disappear any minute. 

Din is thinking the same thing. "Me neither. I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I checked in with Greef to see if you were still around when I stopped in for a visit, but you'd already gone. He told me you called to tell him you were alive and rib him for something or another, but he couldn't find you a few months after you left when you regularly checked in prior to that. He'd deny it, but he was really worried you got in over your head and .....not made it out." Greef had thought she was dead, and Din couldn't wait to let the old man know she was fine, if not sporting new armor and looking a little worn around the edges. Traveling alone does that to you--a fact Din knew all too well.

"I left Nevarro after about 6 months after you did," she informs him, starting in on the story of what she'd been up to in his absence. "Greef was a good friend, but I had to get some revenge out of my system--I was no good to anybody with how angry I was." She shakes her head fondly at remembering her more colorful outbursts. "That old man was way more patient than I would have been in his shoes."

"He liked you," Din tells her. "He wouldn't have put up with shit if he didn't." 

She scoffed in dismissal. She definitely wouldn't describe herself as 'likeable'.

"It’s not so hard to believe that you got stir crazy in a small town. Where did you go?"

"I went off the grid," she said elusively.

Din knew what that translated to. She had lived alone--no purpose, no mission—as she drifted from place to place. 

He doesn't even get to feel pity for her before she's speaking again. "Believe it or not, I tracked _you_ for a while,” she tells him. “I made Greef promise not to tell you, if you got in touch with him."

"Tracked _me_?" Din asked in surprise. True to his word, Greef had never mentioned anything of the sort. 

"I knew where you were, and hacked into secure channels to give the Imps chasing you false trail after false trail--a series of strategic wild goose chases and dead ends to keep them far away from you. I kept tabs on you and the kid for almost a year, until you covered your trail too well for even me to follow. When I lost your position, I feared the worst, but hoped you had just finally gotten better at scrambling your signal. I'm glad it was the latter."

"That was _you_?" he asked in amazement, as her story started to come together with his. "I thought we just had a year of peace." It turned out it was a year of peace at the expense of her long nights spent over maps and building better com systems to boost fake signals--all for him. 

"Why didn't you say anything, Cara? We could have traveled together." He won't let himself finish that thought with unspoken words that would just hurt them both.

_We missed you._

She cocks her head and huffs at him. The sound of her frustrated challenge was familiar too. "What was there to say?" She finally takes a long sip. "I didn't _want_ you to know-- I knew you'd worry. You knew I couldn't travel with you without painting an even larger target on your back, but that doesn't mean I just stopped caring about you......and.....you know who else.”

He took off his glove and reached across to hold her hand and she curled her already bare fingers around his. 

"I'm leaving tomorrow with my ' _other passenge_ r'," he tells her. There's room for one more. Even if there wasn't, I’ll always make a place for you if you want it." He didn't want to mention the kid for the same reason she avoided it--you never know where curious ears might be lurking.

"I'll think about it." She tries to sound disinterested, but isn't quite sure she's pulled it off when she asks with genuine concern, "how is he?”

Din knew she cared about the fuzzy bean, despite her protests that she had a soft spot for anyone. He just learned she spent a year of her life showing just the opposite. She cared about the kid.....and him. He's not sure if that made him feel happy or sad that despite the danger they couldn't have made it work to travel together. He focuses on telling her about the kid. "He's fine. A little bigger and a lot sneakier. He'd love to see you if you're free."

Catching up was truly like they had never parted at all. They picked up right where they left off and their instant connection was just as strong as it had ever been--as if the test of time didn't affect it at all. She tells him how she stayed on Nevarro for a while before drifting from place to place, never finding a place to settle down or call home. The older she got the more she thought maybe home wasn't a place after all--it was a feeling, maybe even the people you came back to time and time again. 

There are certain things she makes sure she doesn't say. She doesn't tell him the last time she had felt that feeling of home had been with _him_. She doesn't go into her change in armor or the new scar he's trying not to look at. Din would blame himself if she told him how she got it from some intel gone bad trying to keep him and the kid safe. He tells her about his past two years and what he'd learned and the relative peace they'd had thanks to her. There had been a few skirmishes here and there, but nothing death defying. 

"I'm glad," she says sincerely. "I'm glad you were happy, that you were safe, that the kid got some peace." She takes him in and sees how undamaged his armor is and how at ease he appears. " You seem like life's been pretty good. You must not have any regrets, that's great." Sometimes she felt her life was _only_ measured in regrets; some larger than others, but a series of missed chances or dreams unfulfilled or taken away.

He surprises her when he unexpectedly speaks. “I do have _one_.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, clearly interested, but unsure what someone like Din could regret. He has a good thing going. He's a good dad; he has steady work, a ship he owns free and clear, and a handful of friends. What could be better than that?

"I've thought about it a lot," he tells her. "One of the only regrets I have is not seeing what we could have been--us, I mean." She knew he meant the ' _us_ ' they refused to talk about.

She feels all the air leave her lungs, but she won't insult them both by pretending like she doesn't share the same regret. “Me too.”

“Why stay on Nevarro and not come with us then,” he finally asks; these words being the question he’d struggled with all this time. "We wanted----" he stops abruptly.

He was done pussyfooting around what he wanted to say. " _I_ wanted--you there. It could have been great." He doesn't want to send her running--he knows Cara is as good with words and feelings as he is--but he has to know. He wanted to know why the one good thing he had by his side had suddenly been gone once the smoke cleared from the mess with Moff Gideon. 

“Three Imperial targets with bullseyes on their backs seemed worse than two?” she offers as an explanation, but he's not buying it.

“Bullshit,” he states. “We could have found a way to fly under the radar."

He can see her nostrils flare as he calls her on her shit. She's never liked being called on out or put on the spot. She decides to tell him the truth, she owes him that at least. "Fine. Scared I guess… "

"Of what?" he asks, genuinely interested in what she was thinking.

"Of how good it might have been?" she suggests, and shrugs her shoulders to try to make the topic seem more casual than it obviously was. “Knew I'd end up fucking it up. It was easier to leave before you left _me_ when you got tired of my bullshit or you realized how poor a role model I was for your kid.”

She suddenly seems tired in a way she didn't appear only moments ago. This must have been a topic she had run over and over in her head--this seemed like old news to her. "Look Din, things were so _good_ and I wanted to remember them that way--not watch it fall apart when I wanted it to work and I couldn't manage to pull it off." The entire time she had been looking into his _'face'_ but now her knuckles were suddenly very interesting. "I've never met anyone I couldn't shake until you. You want me to admit I'm a coward? **Fine**. You want to call me one? That's fine too."

"I missed you, that's all," he tells her, trying to convey he's not trying to put her on the spot or put her on the defensive. "And you're certainly not a coward; not more than me. I should have said something and I didn't."

Cara looks at him again when she speaks. "If it makes you feel better, I thought about you all the time. Just because I wasn't there didn't mean I didn't care. I cared too much, maybe that was the problem."

"Me too." 

He takes it all back. Seeing her again in passing wasn't wonderful--it was _torture_. Having her so close, knowing she thought about him like he thought about her, and knowing they'd walk in different directions later made his chest physically ache. He still had a chance though that he didn't have an hour ago and he wouldn't take it for granted. His moving beautiful speech had gone out the window as soon as she smiled at him, but he still had a chance to leave here with her.

“You have a good job here?" he asks, hoping she has a nice peaceful life but also hoping she has nothing that ties her to this particular planet.

When she thankfully shakes her head, he launches into a spiel he was making up as he went along. "Travel with us for a while," he suggests, hoping it doesn't sound like he's begging. "We were good _then_ , we'll be even better _now_. I swore if I ever caught your trail I'd try to convince you to live with us like I should have then."

She smiled at his sincerity. Seeing him must have affected her judgement because she found herself wanting to take him up on his offer. She had told herself if he had asked her to stay she would have and this was her chance to put her money where her mouth was. "You don't need to work too hard convincing me. I'll give it a shot. I'm getting too old for regrets, and not leaving with you before was a big one."

He scoffed as soon as she said she was getting old, but he couldn’t ignore what she had said. She was coming with him.

"You look _good_." He actually meant it to refer to her the general sense--she looked healthy, relaxed, no visible bruises from bar fights--but it came out much more loaded with desire than he meant it to. She looks down as if she doesn't know how beautiful she is and doesn’t know what to do with the compliment, but when she looks back up, her eyes take their time traveling up his body. The hint of the shape of his neck, his broad shoulders, his chest, his thighs under steel plates, and the back of his hand that's still touching hers are all worth a slow perusal. 

"You look good too."

"I'm still not convinced this isn't a dream," he says, but at this point he doesn't care. He's not letting her walk away without at least saying what he wished he'd said two years ago.

"You dream about me often?" she teases him, before turning her hand over so her fingers slide down his palm. It's a delicate point on a person's body that can either bring a world of pain or goosebump-inducing sensuality, but her smile is so bright he knows he's not treading in dangerous waters. Her fingertips feel so good.

"More than I should probably admit without more liquor in my body."

That must have been the right answer because she grins at him. "Sounds like we have similar dreams then."

It would be so easy to get lost in her touch; to see how far she was pilling to push or let him push, but he needs to say his peace before he lets himself even think about getting lost in more carnal pleasures. If they end up following the soft rhythmic motions of their hands as they rub together, he knows words will all but be out the window.

"I've never met anyone who got under my skin like you did, Cara. You were everything I never thought I'd find in someone. There wasn't a day that went by without thinking if we could have made a go of things if I'd known what to say. My only real regret was letting you go without putting up a fight."

"By staying behind, Din, I was trying to do what was right for you, and your son."

"I know what that's like,” he tells her, even thought it was the wrong call. “I let you go because I thought I was doing what was right for _you_."

“We're a mess,” she tells him, and it makes them both laugh in agreement. “It's kind of funny, whenever we've met up before there was always some ulterior motive--some other fire to be put out. I'm not sure how to step without one: no flying beasts, no crustacean farms, no threat to the kid we have to fight. You know Din, we never even had a single night together, just us…….if you know what I mean.”

"I _did_ know that," he replies with a chuckle that's barely loud enough to hear outside of his helmet. He couldn't tell her how many nights he lay awake wondering what it would be like for the two of them to have given in just once. They might have crashed and burned but it would have been as beautiful and powerful an explosion as a supernova. It seemed she thought of their hypothetical night as well. He wonders if they had been given more time together, how long they would have managed to keep their hands off each other. Not long, he thinks, given how she was looking at him now. He asks her, "how did you know my second biggest regret was never waking up to you snoring and stealing the blanket?"

She laughed. "Because it's _my_ second biggest regret too." 

Din’s not sure where his boldness is coming from, but he can figure that out later. “We can fix that,” he says. “I don't see any flying monsters and the only crustaceans are on the grill behind the bar. It's just us.”

"I like the way that sounds," she replies. She was done with pretending too. “You have a room?”

“I do," he tells her. "Do you want to see it?”

“I want to see your _bed_ ,” she says, past the point of beating around the bush, “I could care less about the room itself.”

“Let’s go.”

……………………….

The kid had indeed been thrilled to see her--his happy chirps left no room for doubt. His ears were up for long as he sat in her lap, his muscles were going to get tired if he didn't relax them. “Don't worry kid," Din assures him, "Cara might leave with us tomorrow. Would you like that?”

Another series of chirps.

The kid isn't buying what Din's selling and the little sneaky bean looks to her for confirmation. "Yes, I'll leave with you guys tomorrow." She rubs the fuzzy hairs down on his ears, hoping he'll finally bring them down to a more relaxed position, but no such luck. 

Din chimes in. "But you have to go to sleep, kid." He turns to her as he plucks the boy from her lap. "It'll just take a minute to put him down."

He placed his cot in an alcove between the bathroom and main room for security, so the child was away from the windows and walked into the living room in search of Cara. He found her instead in the bedroom, sitting tensely on the edge of the bed with her legs straight and crossed at the ankles. She stood up swiftly when she saw him.

“Water?” he asks her, as he's already reaching for a glass to give him something to do with his hands. 

“Okay.” He'd never seen her anything other than 110% confident and sure of herself, marching forward with no sense of danger. _At least he wasn't the only one nervous_ , he thought. He felt like he might shed all his skin just to let out some of the nervous energy thrumming just under the surface.

He poured her a glass and watched as she took a sip to have something to focus on before she put it down and waited for him to make a move--something-- _anything_ to suggest she hadn't misread the kind of night he spoke of wanting to spend with her. She wanted _him_ but maybe he meant something else entirely--something more chaste and she was just wishfully reading more into it. She was expecting her clothes to be on the floor already if he wanted her as much as she did him, but he wasn't making any kind of move in that direction. She could do ‘ _sex’_ but she knew they could do nothing but make love here and now--not something she could claim to have real experience with. _Could it ever be anything else with someone she lov--cared about like Din?_

He tried to break the ice. “Why am I so nervous?”

“Same reason I am, I guess,” she replies. “I just don't want you to regret this.” 

She had thought in very vivid images exactly how they’d do this if they ever met again. Clothes would be ripped off before they even made it to a flat surface, devouring each other in lust; hard and fast and years in the making. This was nothing like that. She had forgotten how much she really cared about him--how gentle his hands were.

“I thought about this a lot,” he says, as he touches her hand and pulls her a step closer, “what it would be like if we ever...”

“Me too,” she tells him, as she takes his other hand in hers. “We were usually naked by this point though.”

He laughs and it drains all the tension. “I missed you Cara Dune.”

“You going to touch me or what? Keep running your mouth?”

“This doesn't feel real,” he says honestly. “Maybe this is a dream.”

She places each of his hands on her hips. She touches every inch of his chest that isn’t covered in beskar and she can feel the warmth under her fingertips calling to her. It’s making her warm as well. “Does this feel like a dream?” she asks, as she presses his hands firmly into her hips, before wrapping them around to squeeze much lower.

“Yes, actually.”

She laughs. "I'll rephrase that. Does this feel _real_?"

His hands on her hips moved to her gun belt sitting against the bottom of her armor covering her flanks. Her armor was black. He wondered what had happened to her old set and how she got that scar on her neck, but that was a story for another time.

“Come on Djarin, I bet you can't get my clothes off faster than I can get yours off.”

He smiles at her but there’s no way she could see it. “While I can never turn down a challenge from you, I want to take my time. I don't just want to rip our clothes off,” he tells her.

“I want to feel you underneath all this,” she almost pleads.

She smirks a wicked grin when he still doesn’t make a move to take her belt off. “Unless....you want to leave it on. Kinky, but I can get behind that.”

Din sighs. He should have seen that one coming. “You never did know when to shut up. I take it back. I didn’t miss you at all.”

“You want to get behind _me_ instead, Mando? That works too, you know.”

He turns off the lights just so he doesn’t have to see her positively sinful smirk any longer. It was making his head spin.

The lights going out made all the difference. Whatever nervousness there was disappeared while taking off each other’s armor, joking and ribbing each other the whole time. That process was familiar. Hands removing armor was a reminder of each other bodies but once their pants were kicked aside and their shirts were thrown somewhere, suddenly the room was stifling. They sped up the closer they got to that final layer of fabric and by the time they got there they were tugging at each other's underwear in abandon to get to bare skin. He took his helmet off and their mouths found each other instantly in the dark. That's what it took for the dam to break. The warm wetness of her mouth combined with the feel of their naked bodies pressed together was too much—they’d been waiting for this. He'd thought of kissing her on Sorgan, when he brought her to Nevarro, when they'd been trapped in that burning building, and when they parted ways, but nothing could have prepared him for the explosion of sensations that sparked all over his body at the taste of her and how eagerly she pushed her tongue into his mouth chasing the same feeling he was.

She thought when they finally got their chance it would be fast, hard, and passionate to the point of blind rushing, but he was determined to make it the opposite. He was devoted and patient-- reverent everywhere he touched her and judged her reaction. She hadn't been this overcome with desire before. When she felt he was being too cautious, slowly inching his way up her ribcage, she put his hand on her breast and squeezed to get him where she wanted him. At her encouragement he didn’t hesitate to reach down between her legs and moaned at how it almost made her legs buckle in pleasure.

She figured this would be desperate and hurried, with her probably face down on the bed, but he never let this mouth leave hers when he climbed on top of her and her back pressed into the too-soft mattress instead.

_So much for sex_ , she thought, as she shifted so he could ease into her without breaking the kiss--they were going to make love. She didn’t know if she remembered how and had the strangest urge to apologize for probably being terrible at this. She wasn’t sure she had even really made love before—if she had ever been with someone she actually felt ‘ _something’_ for and hadn’t met an hour ago. This was _something_ that settled in the back of her mind and the bottom of her heart rather than just in her belly. This _something_ was a deeper connection than a quick fumble in an alley or in the barracks after a mission that didn’t end in death. She had found that ‘ _something’_ in Din. Had she ever wanted to do this with anyone else--making herself vulnerable for the chance of them being vulnerable together? No. She knew the answer to that question immediately.

Somehow, the dark only intensified everything instead of taking anything away as they made love slowly, yet full of love and desire. The sounds of his breath, the smell of his sweat, the taste of his neck, and the feel of him inside her and all around her were all overwhelming. 

_Why had she waited thirty-something years to do this?--to find someone worth sobriety and a night in bed and not a drunk four minutes against a table or a wall?_

And why had _they_ waited almost three years since they met? His mouth had been a revelation; not just against hers, but all over. His mouth was everywhere and she could hardly keep up as he ran his lips over every inch he could. This was like nothing she had felt before. Instead of being on her hands and knees so she could muffle her cries into the pillow, he kissed her the whole time instead. Their moans and gasps into each other’s mouths somehow made it all even better. That was certainly _different_.

The feeling of her nipples against his bare chest as he moved over her was too much and not enough at the same time. She reached down to rub her thumb across the sensitive skin begging for attention, but Din noticed her motion and broke their kiss to tear his mouth away so he could take her nipple into his mouth instead before it was too late. He was running out of time—she simply felt too good.

The heat of his mouth and the soft scrape of his teeth was unholy—infinitely better than her own hand. She was pretty sure what came out of her mouth toward the end was heresy on more than a few planets and indecent on all others. 

............................................ 

It lasted far longer than either thought possible, but it was still over too soon.

She couldn’t see Din’s face in the dark, but she could hear his smug grin nonetheless. “Good?” he asked, as they pulled a sheet over them, despite the heat of the room and the sweat on their skin.

“Shut up,” she said, and kicked him lightly in the shin. “You _know_ it was.”

"Regret number three?" she asks once she catches her breath, hoping to break the awkward silence as the afterglow wore off.

He laughed and it shook the bed with its intensity. “My only regret now is that we didn't do this years ago.”

She felt herself relax.

Din hears her relaxed sigh and takes they chance to speak. "We'd really like it if you left with us tomorrow. Unless I just embarrassed myself so bad you can't look at me without laughing. It's been a really long time....for me."

“That's definitely not the case,” she tells him. “Whatever the opposite of embarrassing yourself is--that's what that was.” She can't even form words. _Did he have any idea how amazing that was?_

“If you’re fishing for compliments, you’ll need some better bait,” she tells him, “and it's been more than a reasonable number of years for me too. I'm not dumb enough to ask you for a performance eval. I'll just assume I'm a goddess and the best you ever had."

He feels an overwhelming surge of affection for this woman rush through him and it had nothing to do with sex. "You're amazing in every possible way and definitely both of those things." It occurs to him he should probably add a very important point. "You know I want you with us for more than just _this_ right.?" He traces his unsteady fingers down her back and around her hip. Despite the darkness of the room, the temperature was sweltering, and their activities didn't help. Everything was slick with sweat.

"Yeah I know,” she tells him. “But it's kind of a nice perk too." 

"I'm serious," he says in the dark. "I've never shaken you--and I don't mean your _body_ \--I mean _YOU_. I could never even make it a day without thinking about you; hoping you were okay, that we might see each other again; that I'd have the chance to ask you to live with us when I wasn't brave enough to ask it on Nevarro when it really counted.”

She’s not sure what to say to that.

"Stay with us, this time. Stay with _me,"_ he asks her _._ "I'm asking as plainly as I know how. We should have been together this whole time, do you feel it too or is it just me? We're good together."

"Yes, I feel it," she tells him, and it feels like a huge weight was just lifted off her shoulders with this knowledge they both accepted finally out in the open. "I'll stay, for as long as you want me there. Tomorrow we'll pack up and head out together. I'll try my best not to fuck it up before we leave the atmosphere."

"There's nothing we can't work out,” he reminds her. “We're good at that too."

“Mmmm.” She made a warm content sound that was so soft and happy he’d remember it forever. He'd never heard anyone make that sound before.

“Fighting and making up will definitely be a lot more fun, not to mention sparring" she teases him one more time, because she just _has_ to.

“Shut up.” His laughter shook her head where it was resting on his chest. The warmth of his skin and the steady thump of his heartbeat were the last thing she remembered as she fell asleep.

.......................................

The morning was a blur. The rain of blasterfire and flying shrapnel woke them from a dead sleep and had them in survival mode in 0.2 seconds. Cara dove onto her belly to make it to her rifle before throwing some clothing on. Din had enough presence of mind to grab his helmet before he made a dive for the alcove to secure the metal covering over the kid before scrambling to put on the clothes and pieces of armor Cara threw at him.

“RUN!” she yelled at him, as he looked between her and the kid as another explosion shook the room they were in. Shells were going off all around them and blaster fire was coming from all directions. Whoever was hunting them, must have not known exactly where they were and were attempting to destroy the entire establishment to be safe in eliminating them.

Cara gets closer to him, taking shelter behind a metal table. “There's an exit that'll lead you around the perimeter of the city. Where's your ship?”

"In a clearing on the green side of the mountain," he yells back, over the cacophony of exploding shells.

"Go! I’ll cover you!" she screams at him. "The Crest is South, I can lead them North. You can make it out the back!”

“No! Come _with_ me! We don’t split up!” he yells to her.

“You have to get the kid out! Go! I can distract them!”

“Promise me I’ll see you again. I just found you.”

When she doesn't say anything just checks the charges she has in her spare cartridge, he yells out over the sound of the courtyard being destroyed. "Promise me!"

“I promise. I'll try to find you. Go, you idiot, before it's too late!”

.......................... 

In the aftermath of the surprise assault, not much of the city survived. Din went back days later, but the whole place was destroyed, with no sign of her. The inn was demolished, with nothing remaining of the room they had shared or the bed he had slept beside her on. His foot stumbled on a piece of worn metal near a collapsed wall and he picked it up. It was her shoulder plate. He remembered taking it off that night right before they had gone from slow undressing to ripping their clothes off. He also remembered she had laughed when he couldn't get her shirt off fast enough. He took it with him as he made it back out of the rubble into what was left of the city.

Sitting back on the Crest at the end of the day, he simply couldn’t believe she didn’t make it out alive. They had always been lucky--facing impossible odds and coming out alive; finding each other time and time again. He can't believe their luck had run out now--not after they finally acknowledged there was something more between them. The villagers had burned the bodies and he vehemently ignored an overheard comment about a beautiful woman with dark hair who didn’t make it out…. she had been burned with rest so he could never confirm nor deny the evidence in front of him.

He immediately blocked all communications from Greef. Just yesterday, he had looked forward to his next call and giving the older man the wonderful news that he'd found her, but now the thought of hearing Karga's voice made him sick. The man had worried about Cara and Din couldn't bear the call he knew was coming to check in like he always did. He kept every other channel open just in case Cara had somehow managed to live and tried to find him, but he couldn't talk to the older man who was the closest thing he had to a friend and the man who cared about Cara like an unlikely adopted daughter. He knew he was lying by omission, but at least the older man could hold onto his blissfully ignorant hope that she was out there somewhere, unable to check in. Din knew the family Karga had lost in his previous life and he didn't want to be the one to tell him he had lost another one. 

For months, him and the kid stumbled from job to job, hint to hint, lead to lead, with no real end-goal in mind. Din tried to ignore her loss. He simply couldn’t accept it. _He would feel it if she were somehow really gone, wouldn’t he?_

Maybe she got out, he thinks. Maybe the villagers were wrong. During the daylight hours he held out hope he’d see her again and then he could yell at her properly for being such a self-sacrificing idiot. In the middle of the night though, he knew she was dead--and worse--dead because of him. Everyone who loved him was killed because they cared about him. It took months to grieve her properly and it was only the ever-present kid by his side that got him through it at all. All that promise, the future days she talked about, his looking forward to living beside her-- all gone. They had finally gotten their chance and it was ripped from them.

It was three months shy of a year when he finally could think about her and smile again remembering her laugh or her teasing. He couldn't tell Greef over a comm channel about finding her and losing her all within 18 hours so he checked his fuel reserves to see if he could afford a detour. Din knew he had to tell him in person, and he set course for the planet he had such a complicated history with.

He knew the smells and sights of Nevarro would make her ghost appear before him, since everything would remind him of her there, but he owed their friend this courtesy. He'd share a drink with Karga in her honor and then head back out to the next lead for the kid’s people--that's what he lived for now. He owed it to her to keep the kid safe--a cause she had died for-- and to remember her fondly and not to dwell in sadness. She wouldn't want that. She'd probably give him a smack and call him a sentimental idiot if she could see him now. He smiled just thinking about it.

She had looked so happy when she had seen him again after years apart. That's the image he tried to focus on. Not the way she felt when they made love or the way she sounded when she talked of leaving with them the following day and her voice echoed the hope and promise he felt when he thought of days traveled together......

The kid slept with her shoulder pad in his bed now. Every time Din managed to sneak it away, it mysteriously ended up back there. He didn’t know if it was doing more damage to let him hold onto the piece of her armor, but it seemed to bring the kid comfort, so he allowed it. While Din felt miserable, it was even worse seeing the kid heartbroken to lose her. If he had been able to talk it was though he was saying, _'but you said she was coming with us, why isn't she here?_ ' He had so few people who cared about him, and---

 _No_. He had to stop this. It was his duty to be strong for the kid. He had to convince him everything was fine.

The nights were the worst after the kid fell asleep and he let his mind drift. Cara had been lost because of him. She was gone because he had been greedy and couldn't pass up the chance to be close to her. She knew it was risky to be seen together but she cared about him and threw caution to the wind to be close to him for even a single night again. She had openly cared about him and paid the ultimate price for it. He didn't know if the kid understood how sorry he was and how much he regretted his weakness now. If he hadn't been so weak, if he had pushed her away; if he hadn’t given in to the temptation to touch her and ....maybe she'd still be here now. His son must have felt his emotions because he sat up in his bed and his ears drooped pitifully. When Din noticed, he tried to force himself to be happy for the little guy. He rubbed his ears and told him. "Cara wouldn't want you to be sad ad’ika. She loved you a whole lot."

The kid looked at him pointedly, and Din almost laughed at the expression on his little face,--the message clear as day-- "I know, I know," he tells the critical face of the kid. "Take my own advice, I know. You're too smart sometimes."

……………………………………..

The kid is secured on the ship, as Din makes his way toward the center of town in the heart of Nevarro City, walking slower than normal. He knows every step is another step closer to seeing his old friend Karga again and watching his face fall when he has to tell him Cara's dead. What he wouldn't give for her to jump out from behind a wall and laugh for getting the drop on him while chiding him for not paying better attention to his surroundings. 

He hears her laugh as he turns the corner into town and he hates his brain for torturing him once more. He cringes as he hears it again and despite his best self-preservation instincts he just has to look. He knows he'll be disappointed, but he has to be sure. _Maybe he really is losing his mind….._

What he sees makes him stop dead in his tracks. _This is just cruel_ , he thinks. A dark haired woman was sitting on the side of a fountain and the laugh was coming from her-- a woman with Cara's eyes, and nose, and lips-- someone who looks exactly like her, but it's---- it's not----it can't be....

_The tattoo on her face...._

_The bars on her arm...._

_The scar on her neck...._

"Din?" He hears her call out across the short distance as she sees him standing frozen stiff.

“Cara?” he feels like a fool for even allowing himself to fall into this delusion where she's alive in front of him, but he can't help it. He can only see her face from where the other villagers are crowded around her, blocking the rest of her body. The sun was peeking through the clouds now. She's gesturing for them to move aside so she can get a better look through the crowd as he gets closer.

She tries to get up but can't. She's holding something in her arms that's restricting her normally quick reflexes.

‘ _Don't get up_ ,’ he wants to tell her, as she struggles to stand, but he can't manage anything so complex. "Is it really you?" he asks her, unable to believe she's alive and sitting in front of him.

The villagers suddenly make themselves scarce, as if they can feel how amazing this moment is.

_No one else had a grin like that. She was alive!_

When the last villagers clear out and he's made his way to where she's sitting. It's clear why she couldn't stand up. She's sitting in the shade holding one of the village women's babies-- newborn by the size of it. Her face is fuller but mostly the same--perfectly in proportion and just as he remembers it. Her hair is pulled back into a different style he hasn't seen before, so he can't judge if it's longer or not. 

"Why didn't you come back here before?" she asks in shock, at seeing him after so long. Suddenly she's angry. "Greef's been worried sick! Your comm hasn't worked in months! I thought you'd been captured or killed, you idiot! Don’t you know how worried we’ve been?”

“ _You’ve_ been worried?” he asks incredulously. “ _YOU_? I came to tell Greef _you_ had died.”

"I obviously didn't," she tells him, "I came back here and I tried to find _you_ like you said. When I failed, Greef tried to find you. We tried the private channel you gave him over and over for months. You went totally off the radar your comm signature didn't work. I thought maybe despite trying to give you cover and leading them North, you didn't make it out. I thought you had died because of me, that I wasn't fast enough providing a diversion."

Minutes had gone by as they faced each other in shock. Din looked around but the area had cleared out. He waited for one of the women to return and take her infant back so he and Cara could talk, but they were all gone. Why was she holding another woman's baby? he wondered. Shouldn't the _mother_ be holding a baby that sma----

He feels all the blood drain from his face as he puts it together. He looks from her face that's watching him closely to the squirmy baby she's rocking gently to settle.

"Cara? What’s-- Whose?"

"He's yours." She seems so calm in the face of his disbelief. She's likely had more time to come to terms with this life-changing news.

Somehow through the thick layer of opaque Beskar, she can still register the shock on his face. 

She takes pity on his surprise and suggests a better place to catch up. "You want to go inside? The sun's come out and it's too hot for him."

" _Him_?" he asks, picking up on the detail she just revealed. “He's a boy? He's really _mine_?"

She tries not to be offended by the genuine shock that spills over in his voice. She knows he doesn’t intend it to imply anything insulting about her character or virtue--he must be quite surprised. She had been more than a little surprised herself all those months ago.

“What? You don't remember?” she teases him. “Coming across one another at chance a second time, or was it the third? The night we spent together that went to hell in a spectacular fashion in the morning?"

Of course he remembers the time they spent laughing and catching up and discovering his only real regret had been hers as well: never seeing what could have been.....

Apparently, their one night had been more than enough to see what could have been--they could have been a family--although it wasn't a hypothetical situation anymore; the evidence of their desire for each other and their connection was currently furrowing his forehead and squinting as the light got brighter with the clouds moving out. 

“I do, I just----" he tries as he remembers the night in question vividly, "I just--we made _this_? How?" 

“Don't tell me you forgot _how_?” she says. “You seemed like you knew what you were doing at the time.”

He follows her into a small living apartment he assumes is hers and closes the door behind him.

He takes a step closer, but not too close in case he scared the tiny human. It was an unnecessary worry--the little boy barely even noticed the tall intimidating figure in armor craning his head to get a better look at him. It was as if he knew there was nothing to worry about--Cara was holding him, he was safe and secure in his mother's arms, and had the whole world laid at his little feet. 

“He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Din says, as he takes the last remaining step to close the gap between them. He's standing next to her now.

"You certainly do deliver the best parting gifts,” she informs him, trying to infuse some humor into the stressful situation, “much better than a straw with a note scribbled on a napkin.” She can’t tell if he knows she’s joking or not. He’s usually so easy to read. They have to get their balance back before they can volley jokes back and forth it seems, so she's genuine when she speaks next. “Thank you, by the way," she tells him, "he's been a good companion all these months I've spent worrying about you.”

He can’t believe it. This whole time she'd been _here_ \--the one place he refused to visit because the memories of her would be too strong……and she hasn't been alone..... he couldn't wrap his brain around this new discovery. 

“Do you want to hold him?” she offers. She can see how focused his visor is glued to the child she's so fiercely protective of that it's almost impossible to let him out of her arms. He needs this though, and she makes herself hold him out in front of her. 

“Yes.” His brain forced it out of his mouth before he even had a chance to overthink it. In addition to the foundling they both were utterly devoted to, he now shared another son with the only woman he'd ever loved--the only person he ever struggled to live without. This was a child who came from their bodies and not just from their offered shelter--it was amazing. Mandalorians never treated children produced in the rare biological sense differently from those who came to them as foundlings, but he couldn't ignore the feeling in his chest at realizing this tiny person was made of the two of them. Whatever buried protective instincts Bean had stirred in him, he knew they had just doubled.

“How old is he?” he asks. The kid safe on the ship was over 50 years old, but already a toddler in human development when Din had thrown everything to the wind to save his life; starting a cascade of events that would change his solitary life for the better. He’d never seen a child this small, and certainly never held one.

"He was born five days ago," she tells him, "but all the days kind of run together. It might have been six now?” she hazards a guess, in case she missed half a day somewhere.

She sees him take off his gloves before rapidly removing his vambraces and pulling at the plates adorning his chest and shoulders. “What are you doing?” she asks. She had already held out the baby to him, but instead of arranging his arms into a cradle, he was fiddling with his plates of armor and laying down his larger weapons.

"I'm taking all this off," he says, as he removes each of the steel plates from his arms and chest. "It's so hard and he's so soft." There was no place for the hardest steel in the universe next to something so delicate and fragile. 

When he sits down in the only chair and Cara puts him in his arms, Din’s surprised at how little he weighs. He’s so light and he adjusts his hold to compensate. He was expecting a much more substantial bundle wrapped in the blanket. He can see the tenseness in Cara’s body at the baby being in someone else’s arms. She must not have put him down at all for the last five or six days.

He looks closely into the tiny face and falls in love the first-time sleepy eyes open to take him in and then close when they sense no cause for alarm. Cara can already tell he's going to be hungry soon from the tightness building in her chest that’s starting to tingle and burn. It's been almost two hours. When he realizes someone other than Cara is holding him, he opens his eyes again and stares at Din in confusion. He’s not upset or scared; just trying to focus on a new ' _face_ ' that’s different from the one that always greets him when he wakes up. If anything, his newborn son reminds him of the other kid, safe on the crest, with how he's sizing him up.

“I haven't been with anyone else,” she says awkwardly, to fill the silence. “You may not believe me, but it's the truth. He's yours.”

"I believe you," he says, running a bare hand over the downy wisps of dark hair and looking at the tiny version of the nose and ears that he sees every time he looks in a mirror. The child's eyebrows are almost translucent in the light from the window but the shape of them isn't hers at all either. "Look at him.......he's me." Even to a stranger who didn’t know Cara's character and fidelity, there could never be any question about the boy's paternity. 

"I don't know _what_ you look like," she reminds him, as he makes it sound so obvious that she should have seen the resemblance herself.

"I look like _this, "_ he says softly, not wanting to disturb him. They're looking at each other silently and Din doesn't want to break the spell or allow his deeper unfamiliar voice to scare him. His eyes drift close again as he hears his mother's voice talking calmly with the new face and arms holding him so gently. She's at ease and therefore he is too.

"How long have you been here? Is Greef still here too?" he asks as the first of his many questions.

"After we parted and I found out about this surprise, I came back to the closest thing to a home I'd had in years. Greef was still here, and he took me in without question. I didn't tell him who the father was and he ever asked, but he's remarkably perceptive when he wants to be. I tried finding you and he helped tirelessly when I failed. You said not to give up so I didn't, though I slowed down searching the last month with everything that was happening."

Din is still in shock, but it's wearing off by the minute. One thing remains though. How could he have messed this up so badly? He had wanted to avoid having to admit she was gone and in doing so, had cut off the one person who knew where she was. "I'm so sorry. I would have been here if I had known." If only he'd been braver and reached out to Greef.........he remembers Cara had called herself a coward months ago, but he was the bigger coward of the two of them without a doubt.

She tries to make him feel better. There's no time for a guilty conscience right now. "You couldn't have stayed, and I know that. You had to keep the green bean moving. I'm just glad you're alive. I never thought I'd be so happy to see your dumb cape in my life."

“Seeing you again, Cara, was the most amazing gift--or at least I thought it was the most amazing gift, but you managed to outshine even that with this little guy. "

"He is pretty amazing. I might be partial though." She tries to joke a bit, but he's too focused on the little boy to pick up on it.

“Can I take this off and look at him with my bare eyes?” he says, clearly meaning his helmet.

"He might open _his_....." she warns him, "he kind of does what he wants, like your other boy. He might see your face if you're not careful."

"That's a risk I’m willing to take. Just for a moment."

She moves behind him so he can take off the metal separating him from his son--his _other_ son. The green one with the soft ears was resting on the Crest."

His voice is different when he takes the helmet off, but it doesn’t alarm the little guy snoozing happily in his arms. "Tell me about him,” he requests, as she sits behind him where it's safe. He's not sure what details he's looking for, but he wants to know everything, so he leaves the question open-ended. 

“He's always hungry," she tells him, and he thinks it's funny that's the first thing she thinks of. "He has these big dark eyes that look right through you. His cry is getting louder by the day and his little fists curl up next to his face when he's sleeping."

He takes in the perfect features of the tiny face: the soft little curled ears, the downy forehead, and the softness of his shoulders that aren’t covered by the loose shirt that still have a fuzzy covering of hair. Din uses his index finger to uncurl a little fist and sees perfectly formed fingers with tiny paper-thin nails. The little mouth that is definitely all his, keeps making comforting sucks every so often, dreaming about his next meal. 

“He's so perfect. I can't believe he came from me.” He soaks in everything in the light of the room with nothing between his eyes and the baby he and Cara made. He rests his forehead against the little boy's and feels the warmth against his lips as he places a kiss on his little brow, and watches it wrinkle in grumpy protest. The top of his head smells like nothing Din had ever smelled before. It's sweet and addicting--he could rest his nose against the crown of his head all day if it was possible.

He stirs a little more restlessly, and Din replaces his helmet before the dark eyes decide to flutter open. He looks behind him to see Cara watching them with a content look on her face. Content or not, she looks bone tired and she's holding her abdomen with both hands but trying not to draw attention to it. She had surrendered the only chair to Din but he can see how difficult that must have been. She looks like she’s in pain from standing so long as he got acquainted with their boy and he feels guilty for just noticing now.

“How are _you_?” he asks, ashamed of how quickly he'd forgotten she was the reason he's been overjoyed just moments ago. "Are you okay?"

“Yeah. I'm fine,” she assures him, and he’s trying to read her face to see how true that really is. As if reading his mind, she adds on to her previous statement. “Healing slow……but normal.”

He looks around the room, which is in disarray with towels, blankets, and assorted little pieces of clothing. His eyes are drawn to her bed which has towels laid across the middle of the mattress where she lays down to sleep. There's a generous amount fresh and dried blood on the towels and a pile of linen in the corner, likely in the same state. “How much are you still bleeding?” he asks her. He doesn’t know how much is a normal amount, but someone should be watching her to make sure it's not something to worry about. 

“It’s been less than a week," she tells him, "it can go on for some time, so I’m told.”

He's not convinced. “Are you sure that’s normal?”

“Yeah, childbirth is nasty business. I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart.” He didn't need to hear about the details of her excessive bleeding or tearing she suffered just days prior. "I'm fine," she insists again, "healing well, just tired is all."

She reaches out to the baby and he surrenders him reluctantly as she begins her explanation for taking him. “I was going to wake him up to feed him before he gets all worked up and then lay down for a few minutes.”

“Of course. You must be exhausted! Here….." He gets out of the only chair as quickly as he can without disturbing the baby but there's no point. As soon as Cara sits down with him, she's raising his little shirt and rubbing his bare back to coax him awake. 

Din can't take his eyes away the whole time she sits in the chair and feeds him. He memorized it all--his grabby hands; fists opening and closing near his face, little fingers plucking at the edge of her shirt and against the engorged breast he’s held against. He’d feel like it would be inappropriate to stare under any other circumstances, but this was amazing—there was nothing sexual about seeing her top bare like this. He takes note of the few silvery lines he imagines are new additions, thought the last time he'd been this close to her bare breasts the lights had been off. He takes note of the way she holds him so easily and switches sides after a few minutes, applying pressure to places on her chest in what he assumes has something to do with milk.

“Could you grab me a towel and one of those cotton pads?” she asks, embarrassed, as she leaks through her shirt on the side without the baby gulping noisily.

He wonders how she could possibly be embarrassed with the miracle that's going on right now.

At a particularly loud gulp, Cara rubs the little fuzzy head after shoving the cotton round under her shirt to catch the mess that was ruining one of her only clean shirts. "Sorry, he has terrible table manners."

"He gets that from you then?" Din quips, and he sees her barely suppressed grin.

What wasn’t suppressed, was her middle finger coming up without missing a beat and Din laughs at the ridiculous and unexpected turn the day has taken. He can't believe it. His laugh makes _her_ laugh and the jostling causes the baby to re-latch incorrectly and Cara winces until she can manage to fix it. "There's no need to bite," she tells the little guy and then looks up to Din's face which is surprisingly close. "He gets _that_ from you."

Din refuses to admit his face got hot at her words and the memory it alluded to. 

"Careful, there's a baby present," he says, and she laughs, but is careful this time not to let the movement affect what's going on at chest-level. 

Din watches as she pats his little back when he's finished and her eyes look heavier than they did even five minutes ago. “Can I hold him for you while you sleep so you can get some rest?” he offers.

“Just don’t leave the room,” she tells him as he takes the baby while she lies down. “He's never been out of my arms or right by my side at the very furthest. I don't know how I'd react if I woke up and couldn't see him immediately.”

“He sounds beautifully spoiled,” Din says, and manages to make it sound like a compliment somehow.

“He is,” she says proudly, “much like your other kid. Is he here? Is he okay?"

“Yeah. I'll go get him when you wake up. He'll be so happy to see you.”

“Okay.” She's already half asleep before the word leaves her mouth. She must have been more exhausted than she let on. 

Din leaves when she wakes up and comes back with the kid who's so happy to see her, he's practically vibrating with excitement. She'd holding him in her lap while Din's getting further acquainted with the warm wiggly weight in his arms who's much more alert this time. Din chuckles something in a language she doesn't understand as the infant smacks himself in the face with a tiny hand before he interferes and helps tuck it back into the swaddle. Din's so taken with this little person who doesn't even have a name yet, but his thoughts keep drifting to the woman beside him.

"I can feel you thinking under there," she says gesturing to his helmet. "Say what’s on your mind."

"I don't want to send you running."

"You won't," she insists.

"We're meant to be together, Cara. We were meant to be together _then_ , the next _then_ , and the next _then_. I've never been someone who believes the universe has a grand plan or that people are destined to cross orbits, but this is too much. We're meant to be together now too. You could wrap up any loose ends here and we can try to get back the months we lost when the inn was attacked and we had to part ways. Come with us, Cara. We can all be together."

It sounded so tempting, though she can't see how she could possibly earn her keep. “I'm no good to you in a fight,” she says regretfully. “I won't be for quite some time," she says matter-of-factly, as if she'd run this hurdle over in her head before. "I don't want you to feel like you _owe_ me, and I sure as hell won't be deadweight, or _worse,_ a liability. And not just that…..I jus---look at him," she says, staring at the tiny helpless form wrapped in the blanket. "He's so soft and innocent. You know what happens to soft things in the universe." 

“We'll keep him safe," he insists, "and you don’t have to be _useful_ to be valuable--to be loved." 

She's not arguing, but she doesn't look convinced either. "Look at _him_...... " Din says, nodding his head toward the green bean in her lap who is playing contently with her fingers, “or _him_....” he says, then looking down at the boy who’s starting to fuss in his arms. His bottom feels warm. _He’s probably wet_ , he thinks, but it can wait a few seconds to convince Cara that her worth has nothing to do with her ability to hold a gun or throw a punch.

“If you feel like you have to contribute to make this work-- _you will_ \--but know this: I just want _you_ , not your ability or strength.”

“Give me a few days to think about it?” she proposes, though she already knows it's what she wants.

Din sees that as a victory. “Done.”

She seemed surprised at his response. He was always on the move. “You sticking around that long?” she asks.

“I just found you again," he tells her; his helmet not masking any of the sincerity in his voice. "The universe has clearly spoken—we should have been together the whole time. I'm not leaving without you unless you tell me to go.”

“I won't.”

“Then I'm staying," he tells her. "I have so, _so_ much to catch up on."

…………………..The End……………………..

“I think some people are just inexplicably bonded. Drawn by forces beyond their own comprehension, they have no choice but to gravitate toward one another. Destined by fate to keep crossing paths until they finally get it right.”

— L.B. Simmons

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed.  
> I’d love it if you left a comment. It makes it all worth it : )  
> Until next time.


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